


napalm skies

by babochu



Series: ocean eyes [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Baby Peter Parker, But He Makes The Right Decision In The End, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony is struggling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 12:14:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babochu/pseuds/babochu
Summary: “It’s a boy.”Throughout the hospital that smells of bleach and medicine. Like toxicity that is ironically clean. It’s too white and too quiet; too loud all the same. It’s all so ironic.He's a fatherOr the one where Tony goes to the hospital to meet Peter, his son, for the first time and has a decision to make.





	napalm skies

“It’s a boy.”

 

He is slipping. Forever falling into an abyss that will swallow him whole and spit him out and swallow him again. Made to take his thoughts and his emotions swirled together to make him go crazy and mad. He isn’t- and could never be stable enough for _this_.

 

To be a father.

 

But he walks. With the nurse. Throughout the hospital that smells of bleach and medicine. Like toxicity that is ironically clean. It’s too white and too quiet; too loud all the same. It’s all so ironic.

 

He’s a father.

 

He can’t focus on the emotion in his heart when she pushes open the door, to a small room. There’s an incubator and tubes- so many tubes. Nothing else really settles in the room. It all feels so foreign. The television, the chairs strewn about. Everything is so perfectly placed but so out of balance he can barely keep himself on his feet.

 

As he enters the room, just to hear the silence- the nurse speaks again. “He was born at three sixteen in the morning,  August tenth. He’s too small to go home but he’s developing well, better as the week goes on. He’ll do even better in a couple days, surely.” She smiles, maybe, Tony can’t be sure cause he can’t keep his eyes away from the incubator.

 

The tiny thing inside that seems to only breathe- that’s all it- _he,_ does. Chest falling up and down. He isn’t close enough to see a face, he doesn’t want that- not right now. But he can see his chest, rising and falling and everything feels okay but like it’s crumbling all the same.

 

He doesn’t register at what point she leaves, at what point he stops listening. He stops seeing everything expect the little thing, as his chest rises up and down. Up and down.

 

Up-

 

“-ony? Tony?”

 

He blinks.

 

Turning his head, he sees Pepper, blue eyes so clear and vibrant. With what- there’s something in her eyes and he can’t tell what it is. So many emotions that flicker in a matter of seconds. “D-do, you want to see him?” She asks it with a choked whisper.

 

And he frowns.

 

Looking back at him, breathing, he wants to say no.

 

He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to get any closer to something so fragile. Something so close to being broken. With so many tubes, and monitors, and- _God._

 

And Tony musters that little bit of logic that seems to come to him. Layered in tiny bit of doubt and emotions- and he shakes his head. He doesn’t want to see him. He really doesn’t.

 

_He really, really does..._

 

Not. He does not.

 

And he walks out of the room. Before he can think ( _feel)_ anymore. Before he can tell himself differently. He walks out, into the hall. And sits in one of the chairs. As more nurses, and doctors and people, and everyone walks by. As the whole world goes on Tony Stark’s sits out in front of his son’s hospital room. His mind in ten million places and his heart in a billion more. He wants the universe to stop, but people walk on, time continues to taunt him and he can only sit outside his son’s room.

 

_His son._

 

There isn’t a ring to it at all. And it feels like a disease when he thinks of it. Like a sickness that’s itching at throat. Like it’ll get worse and worse and take him over. It isn’t right and he tells himself it over and over and over and over again but it starts to stick to him this thought. His son. It echoes in his mind. Until it can’t stop.

 

His son. His son. His son. His son. His son, _his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son, his son_ -

 

However long it takes, however much time that passes by and makes him wait he’s greeted with someone else, as they sit right beside him. He glances to his side, not even noticing the tears that had stained his cheeks, his eyes disturbing blurry. He wipes at them and sniffles away the impending thought of more. More tears and more emotions.

 

There’s a laugh and he can’t help but give a biting glare. “Don’t worry Stark.” The man surrenders a bit. “I’m only here to introduce myself.”

 

Tony scoffs. “I’ve had enough introductions today.” He says, thinking of the man on the phone, the lady at the front desk, the nurse, _his son_.

 

He can feel the disappointment roll off in waves of the stranger but he seems no stranger to disappointment and pushes on. “Is that so?” And it has its own punch to it but Tony gives a crude smile at him.

 

This isn’t Howard. He thinks to himself. This isn’t his professor at MIT that was sure he was going to drink himself to death after his first semester, or Rhodey or Obadiah. Or- “What is it?” He asks, his tone not as biting as he’d like.

 

“I wanted to introduce myself but I heard from your assistant you hadn’t met Peter yet.”

 

He frowns.

 

Peter.

 

_Peter._

 

_His son. Peter._

 

There’s a name attached to that little body in there that breathes and fights and keeps fighting and breathing. He doesn’t like that. Doesn’t like the idea that he has something to call him, a name to think back on when-

 

He doesn’t say anything to that. Just pushes his hands into his eyes. The exhaustion weighing him down. Made to make him feel the full weight- now he has a name.

 

_Peter._

 

“You know, they said if you didn’t show- if you didn’t get here he’d put in foster after, everything. He’s been struggling. But he’s strong, already so much already. Despite it all.” The man laughs and it’s bitter, tight and cold. “We already knew he was with the way he kicked-”

 

Tony glares. “Is there a point to this?” He spits out finally looking the man in the eyes and he’s met with equal irritation.

 

“Yeah. There kind of is. Your son is in there without his mother and you’re all he’s got.” The man glowers at him. “Or do you not want to be?”

 

There’s an accusation to that and a challenge all the same. Tony can’t feel himself answer. Doesn’t want to answer that cause- does he? Does he want this weight, this responsibility that felt even heavier than skipping ahead three years, graduating at seventeen, holding down the _company_ \- does he want that?

 

Tony can hear the clock tick and the answer doesn’t come with the time- or when the man gets up and leaves. Muttering, “My name is Ben by the way.” Not that Tony cares to reply or respond. His mind on the cusp of spiralling into a deep darkness that felt like it would shadow him forever.

 

The answer doesn’t come with Pepper’s beckoning him to eat and Rhodey’s insistence. It didn’t come to him when he ate and felt sicker than ever, when he flippantly went through emails and dodged a million phone calls from Obadiah.

 

It doesn’t come when the doctor comes- _“It’s been thirteen hours?” -_ back into the hallway. Papers and files on that little clipboard about Peter.

 

But when Tony wills himself the strength to stand, he feels as if he’ll go home. Sleep and awake to a woman and or man, red head, blonde, brunette- _someone,_ uncomfortably tucked into his side. He feels as if he’ll blink away the pending guilt and trepidation in his heart with a hungover haze.

 

Tony stands though he doesn’t go home.

 

He stands and for a long while it’s just him and then his legs move then his mind and lastly his heart. As he turns to the knob to his sons door- as he breaks the lock that was on his heart. Twisting it open to see the small body in the incubator.

 

Still breathing.

 

Chest rising up and down.

 

He walks towards the small thing- his son so fragile and small. And he feels like there’s never been a moment as terrifying as the one he’s in now. The time that holds him down as he pushes a chair towards the incubator and sits and stares.

 

“Peter.” He says, quietly. And it feels wrong and right at the same time.

 

He figures in the moments that he stares, glassy-eyed at his son he should feel the overwhelming sense of love. He figures that’s the case, as he looks over every inch of his son’s face, every moment that he breathes, his tiny eyes looking over his father. A crystal clear of hazel stares at him.

 

He figures it should be love, but there it’s the inordinate feeling of fear that clenches at his emotions.

 

He doesn’t feel the tears until they’re falling.

 

Just like he doesn’t get the answer until he looks at Peter in his bright star like eyes.


End file.
